Modern healthcare requires the concurrent provision of services by many health-care workers to many patients. In order to accomplish this, healthcare delivery has been organized into specialized departments such as, for example, nursing, laboratory, pharmacy, and radiology departments. Each department has responsibility for accomplishing its particular, often specialized, subset of tasks. Unfortunately, this has resulted in fragmented patient care and sub-optimal healthcare operations. A single healthcare process, such as the ordering and administration of a medication, sometimes requires the participation of multiple health-care workers that may be associated with multiple departments resulting in increased opportunities for error and delay.
Clinical and healthcare information systems have been computerized to help health care workers perform individual tasks. However, most systems typically have limited capability to manage a sequence of the individual tasks involved in healthcare processes. This is particularly true when the processes require the involvement of one or more health-care workers associated with one or more departments.
Some computerized systems include workflow management systems that are designed to manage complex processes, called workflows, which include multiple individual work steps, forming a sequence and schedule of tasks, performed by one or more workers associated with one or more departments. These systems permit customized configuration of the workflows, as well as continuous monitoring and management while the workflows are in progress. Preferably, these systems support configuration of the workflows at a local level where the workers implement the workflows.
Some computerized systems also have a user interface permitting workers to input information, such as via a keyboard or a touch screen, and receive output information, such via a display or recorded format on paper or a recording medium, related to the workflows. Workers use the user interface to perform tasks such as, for example, searching and reporting results, ordering goods and services, documenting clinical and nursing care, and capturing financial or operational data.
Usually, system administrators customize order forms for goods or services (e.g., test, medication, nursing activities, etc.) for a particular healthcare system. Present computerized systems require the administrator to create an order form for each type of or specific service. Typically, an order is hard coded in an order program that requires the services and time of a skilled programmer to make changes to create the customized order forms. Hence, the process for generating the order forms is complex and time consuming which directly affects the order form installation. Further, an end user, such as a doctor, typically needs to open a separate application to update relevant clinical information, such as patient assessment information, rather than being permitted to enter the update directly from an order form, which is time consuming and sometimes confusing.
In light of these and other deficiencies, it would be desirable for computerized systems to permit system administrators themselves to create order forms efficiently, without being a skilled programmer, to streamline the process of installing order forms for a healthcare information system. Preferably, the computerized system would generate the order forms using data stored in a master file. Such data driven order forms would be created as a by-product of performing maintenance of service definitions, thereby reducing installation time. The computerized system would also permit limited changes of the order format by end users, if desired. Further, integration of relevant clinical information (assessment, patient, etc.) on the order form also provides a streamlined order entry flow. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved order generator and corresponding method that would meet these and other desirable features of a healthcare information system.